Wizards of Waverly Place: Double Alex
by Thor2000
Summary: A nightmare on Waverly Place, a new ghost in the shop and a battle between Good Alex and Evil Alex as Alex once again breaks the rules and might end up replaced over them...
1. Chapter 1

Jerry Russo and his beautiful wife, Theresa, were the owners and managers of the Waverly Place Sub Shop on Waverly Place near Manhattan's Greenwich Village and Washington Square. Shops and stories owned and run by people with multi-racial origins dotted the local community. There was a Jewish delicatessen and an Oriental restaurant as well as a hardware store with an Italian name on it with a unspoken legacy back to the old Mafia crime families that used to run the area, but those times were long gone. The shops and eateries lined the walkway between Waverly Place on up to Washington. Almost a thousand people crossed through here on the walk from one part of the community to the other part of the community. Many of them had their lunch at the Waverly Place Sub Shop on a regular basis. To keep those customers coming back, Jerry tried to encourage his kids to create new sandwiches between their lessons. He had three kids. Justin was the hard-working overachiever who tried hard to be the ideal son, the young one was Max who had his fun establishing the rules of what was cool and fun and the missing one was the lazy yet self-centered daughter known as Alex who was either still in after school detention or cruising the mall with her best friend trying to get another boyfriend to add to her previous collection.

"Well, Max…" Jerry looked to his wife by his side after hearing his new sandwich idea. "I'm sure Andrew Zimmern swears by spiders as an alternate source of protein…" He noticed Theresa holding her stomach and trying to not vomit her breakfast. "But I don't think the rest of the world is ready to embrace it."

"I wish you'd stop watching Travel Channel and go back to Disney Channel!" Theresa held her head as if she had a headache.

"Okay, here's my idea…" Justin sipped his bottled water and set it aside. "How about a Seafood Surprise?" He mused excitedly. "It seems that several years ago the Subway Sandwich chain used to have a lobster and crab sandwich, but for some stupid reason or another they did away with it. Everyday, my buddy, David, at the Subway over on Lexington says someone is always asking when is it coming back! We could fill that void! Let them come here and get it!"

"Interesting, interesting…" Jerry checked his watch and looked for his errant daughter. "But crab and lobster is expensive. Economically, we couldn't cover the cost."

"Here's the beauty of it…" Justin looked over to his father. "As wizards, we can get them wholesale directly from Maine and cut out the middle man." He started to pick up his water then hesitated as a distant impact tremor resonated the block through it.

"That could work…" Jerry considered it. "I'd have to run it by the Wizards Ethics code, but I'm sure there's no rule against magically transporting seafood."

"Wouldn't the health department ask us where we were getting it?" Theresa asked aloud.

"And that kills the seafood sandwich idea…" Jerry crossed that off the list. "Unless we can get the lobster and crab whole sale from around here, we…" Another more obvious impact tremor sounded that jostled the block. Justin watched the vibration resonate through the other drinks at the table, and his mother braced from the impact. Jerry scowled confused wondering what was going on.

"Max…" He looked to his young son. "Did you magically let another T-Rex loose from that movie?"

"No, dad, I swear…" Max confessed as another louder vibration jostled the shop enough that a rack of clean silverware crashed to the floor from the counter behind them and the condiment bottles on the tables fell over around them. Even the chairs at the tables were close to vibrating off the tables and crashing to the floor. "I haven't watched _Jurassic Park_ in over a month!"

"You watched _The Lost World_ last night." Justin pointed out.

"Hello, different movie!!!" Max confessed as the next impact tremor dropped the chairs from the tables in the shop and sent a few bottles in the kitchen falling to the floor. Whatever was coming was getting closer. Several people started running through Waverly Place and pedaling through on their bikes at top speeds. A few tried getting into the shop to escape what was coming, but the front doors were closed as usual for Sunday and they raced off to get away as fast as they could. Jerry tried looking out the front of the shop to see something. Justin went to the side windows from the direction of the scared and fleeing by-standers as people continued running in fear of their lives. Whatever was making the impact tremors with each step was right overhead, the next one rippled through the shop and shook the foundation as Theresa braced on Max to keep from falling over to her feet. A vast shadow blocked out the sun as Jerry strained to see over the hardware store across the street.

"What's going on?" Theresa asked. "What is it?"

"I can't tell…" Jerry pulled his keys from his pocket as crowds raced by the shop in terror. He unlocked the front entrance and pushed the doors before him as he stepped out on the sidewalk. All around them was daylight, but over the shop and Waverly Place, something blocked out the sunlight. He dodged two kids running past him and cocked his head skyward as something moved beyond the roof of the hardware store. Justin searched the skies wondering of this was the day of First Contact when extraterrestrials became real. He jogged over to the other sidewalk as more terrified spectators ran the way to Greenwich Village. His brown eyes craned higher and higher to the mass of shadow fifty-feet high blocking his view… It's shape, it's movement… It was Alex!!! Theresa screamed at the sight of her!

"I'm so hungry!!!!" Her booming voice echoed over the city with the torrent of a storm. She had to be over fifty feet tall… the shadow of the sun behind her and the awkward perspective from the ground keeping her from being recognized as a local youth from the neighborhood. Clad in bed sheets tied over her chest and a huge tarp hanging from her hips, she was emoting both the fear and power of a famous Allison Hayes movie as she panned the sight of screaming and running figures at her feet. Her legs were as wide as ancient California redwoods, her stature as vast as the face of Mount Rushmore itself. She lifted up a small sports car and tossed it over her shoulder to crash into the roof of the pet store.

"Alex!!!" Jerry screamed at her even as his wife and sons backed in fear and surprise. "What did you do?!!!"

"I'm so hungry!!!!" Alex reached down and lifted up a bus in her hands. It was like a small toaster with wheels in her encompassing hands. The people in it started screaming as she jostled and shook it. They were so far up off the ground; the fall would kill them if they fell. The giant girl's invading fingertips poked the doors open as the bus driver undid his seat belt to escape and tried climbing up the aisle rising up before him. Passengers were scrambling to climb over the seats as a fat lady tumbled backward and crashed into him, sending them both falling out of the vehicle. The first thing either of them saw was the open maw of that giant teenage girl just before falling through her lips and into that endless humid gullet she called her mouth. Theresa fainted into Justin's arms at the sight of her new fifty-foot-tall cannibalistic daughter.

"Alex…. Oh my god…." Jerry turned to Justin holding his mother and dragging her into the store. "Max, get my spell book!!!!"

"This is like so cool!!!" He couldn't stop watching as Alex continued shaking the commuter bus. "Where's my camera!" Who else got to live through a horror movie? People were falling into his sister's giant mouth or bouncing off her shoulders and crashing to earth as she shook them from the bus.

"Max, the spell book!!!" Jerry screamed as a young lady bounced off his daughters left arm and landed before the shop.

"Dad! Dad!!!" Justin was holding on to his unconscious mother and pointed to his sister's titanic presence over the neighborhood. She had emptied the bus, looked down upon her family and raised the bus even higher. Jerry looked up to his daughter's possessed black eyes as she snarled with hostility, reared the commuter bus up higher and hurled it to earth at them through the front of the shop. What the impact didn't destroy, the exploding gas engines took care of in the fire. With that disturbing sight, the real Alex Russo woke up from the shock.

Jostled from sleep, she sat in her canopy bed reeling from her disturbing images for a few seconds and looked upon her moonlit covered surroundings, her breath racing, her hands trembling and the trepidations of fear clutching her heart. She gasped recalling the vivid images of her dream. She could still feel the bus in her hands; the sensation of standing so tall over her street. By her side, the neon red letters of her bedside clock read 3:15 AM. In three hours, she'd have to get up for school. Perspiring and distraught, she fought to catch her breath, her eyes ablaze with stunned fear and nervous fright. What was happening to her?! She pushed her comforter back and extended her still dainty feet to the carpet before racing out of her room and toward her parents' room at the end of the hall. Prodding open their door, she launched into their bed like the tiny scared girl she used to be when she was younger and turned to her mother.

"Mom…. Mom…" She trembled afraid her heart was about to explode from the fear of her dream.

"Oh, what…" Teresa stirred slowly from her sleep and dreams around Antonio Banderas. "Lexie, baby… did you have the dream again?" She spoke with the accent of her Spanish heritage.

"Alex had the dream again?" Jerry opened his eyes half asleep and rolled over to his teenage daughter between him and his wife. He groaned tiredly exhausted. Alex looked like a little girl again in the dark room with just moonlight shaping her facial features. "Alex…." He sighed tiredly.

"Jerry," Theresa stroked her daughter's head. "You've got to do something. Our poor Lexie has been having these dreams for almost a month. She can't get any sleep."

"I know… I know…" Jerry yawned, rubbed his face sleepily and looked to the shape of his daughter's shadow. "Alex…" Jerry yawned tiredly and rubbed his eyes. "I talked to Professor Crumbs at the school about your dreams, and he said there could only be one of three reasons." He braced backward on his left arm. "One, are you scared of your powers?" He explored the possibility of a psychological excuse.

"Are you kidding?" Alex thought the question was ridiculous. "I love them! I just wish I could use them a lot more!"

"Not going to happen…" Jerry tiredly moved on to the next reason. "Are you guilty about something you did with your powers?"

Alex just shot him the same look. She was never guilty about anything she did.

"Well, then…" Jerry yawned a bit. "The only other possibility is that it's a premonition to something that's going to happen. I mean, shortly after my powers kicked in, I had recurring dreams of being lost in the woods, and they stopped after I passed my wizard's exam."

"Jerry…" Theresa looked around her daughter to her husband. "What does being lost in the woods have to do with an exam?"

"A wizard's premonitions are never exactly like the event they are being warned of; they're more about psychological imagery." Jerry explained. "My dream was about fear and distress. Alex's dreams about being a giant are more about… I don't know… becoming something she doesn't want to be, liked exposed as a wizard to the world or maybe even turning into something she doesn't want to be."

"Like fifty feet tall and eating people like popcorn…" Alex nodded her head scared for her life.

"Alex, honey…" Jerry stroked the back of his daughter's head. "You are not going to turn into a giant. There are umpteen wizard rules against it."

"But I never follow rules!!!" Alex confessed scared to death! Her mother pulled her tightly trying to give her support.


	2. Chapter 2

2

"You had the dream again?" Justin and Alex worked after school for spending money in their parents' store. "Did I at least…"

"Still crushed under the bus…" Alex chopped lettuce for sandwiches.

"Crap and a half!" Justin sliced tomatoes and onions for the sandwich making area. "Why can't you have dreams about Orlando Bloom and Jesse McCartney like other girls?!"

"I still do." Alex yawned tiredly over her insomnia. "I ate them too!" She paused for another bigger yawn. "You know who I blame… you and Max."

"What?!"

"Last month, you guys watched that twenty-four hour horror movie marathon on TV starting with _Night of the Demons_ and ending with _The Amityville Horror_!" She danced her knife nonthreateningly before her and her brother. "I'm not used to those movies!"

"Oh, please!" Justin took her knife down and set it aside before she went all Lizzie Borden on him. "You were cheering louder than us when Michayla got staked in the coffin in _Haunted High School_!"

"Well," Alex made up an excuse. "I'm not exactly a fan of hers. She reminds me of someone I know, and it freaks me out." She picked up her bin of chopped lettuce and carried it from the chopping area of the kitchen around to the sandwich area of the shop, placing it in its space under the glass after removing the empty bin it replaced. Her father was at the counter ringing up customers and scanning their credit card for the purchase. Grateful for another satisfied new customer, he turned to his beautiful daughter with pride and even a bit of tired concern.

"Uh, dad…" Alex sighed a bit and tried to be the model daughter as Justin brought out the tomatoes, onions and black olives. "There's like a movie I'd really like to see, and I was kind of hoping…"

"Uh, no, you're still grounded for animating that mannequin while your mom and I were out of town and your brother was in charge." He referred to recent events.

"Well…" Alex thought it over. "Maybe I'm having the dreams because of the fact I'm grounded. You could like not ground me and find out…"

"Nice try…" He stopped her there. "Your punishment stands."

Alex grunted defeatedly at his parental responsibility.

"I'm really sorry about your dreams, but honey…" Jerry looked her over. "I'm not letting you use them to get out of your punishment for using magic in public." He cleaned up his mess from the customer order. "You know…" He had an idea.

"Yes…." Alex shined hopefully.

"You know, there is one way we could get another perspective on Alex's dream." Jerry paused from wiping down the sandwich area with a fresh cloth. "It just dawned on me…" He looked to his son. "Justin, I've got a spell you could use to enter Alex's dream."

"I don't think so!!!" Justin rejected that idea. "She drops a bus on me in her dream. That's a good way to get killed!"

"You can't get killed in a dream." Jerry leaned toward him. "You just get… thrown out by the impact."

"Is that supposed to sound better?" Justin nixed the whole idea.

"Would you stop following me?" Max was arriving home late from school. He came in through the front of the sub shop and looked behind him to the girl following him. She was somewhere in her late teens to early twenties with long cascading brown hair and large brown eyes, she looked like a young Kim Cattrall or soft brunette Reese Witherspoon. Wearing a turn of the century long skirt and long-sleeved blouse with a high collar, she actually passed through the front door of the shop as she came after Max. Once in the dining area, she shined vivaciously and grinned excitedly at all the people around her eating and drinking at the tables.

"Oooooo, people…" She turned round excitedly. "This is what I was talking about. Life, activity, things to do… I think I want to live here instead!"

"Max…" Jerry tugged his son closer to him. "Who is that?"

"The guys and I went exploring in the old theatre after school to look for ghosts." Max confessed as the immaterial young lady wandered around unseen by the people around her. His father, Justin and Alex could see her due to their mystical senses, but no one else could. "She just sort of found me… and realized I could see her. I told her it was because I was a wizard."

"Hi…" The female apparition looked back shining with emotion upon Jerry and eager to talk to a person who could see her. "I'm Melissa Veronica Wilder. I was born in 1888 and worked as an actress at the theatre until I was killed in 1906 by a horse kicking me in the head. You know, a lot of people claimed I took my life because I lost a part in _Our American Cousin_, but only because it sounds more scary than getting kicked by a horse." She looked around excited to be around people again. "You know, I barely saw anyone in the theatre since it closed beside the random ghost-hunter and even that got boring. The other ghosts there weren't much fun. The Union officers only ever played cards, and the stagehand who broke his neck falling off the catwalk was constantly complaining about his bad back, and then there was the old lady who used to live in the cottage once on the site, but all she ever did was complain, but other than that, I really didn't have anyone to talk to and spend time with." She noticed Alex. "Hi, you're sixteen, right? My sister was sixteen when I last saw her, but she got married and moved to Delaware before the big war. I think her husband was in the state department; you probably got a boyfriend, right?"

Alex slowly turned her head to her father.

"Wow…." She tried to keep from laughing at this very lively but talkative spirit.

"Uh, Mrs. Wilder…" Jerry tried to guide her off to the side but his arm passed through her. "While it's true we can see you, my wife can't, and, well, no disrespect… but… she's not exactly crazy about ghosts." He sounded very sympathetic to her plight. "I don't think you can really stay here. We had a problem with a ghost here about a month ago, and…" Theresa had crossed behind him with a pitcher of tea for the customers then backed up.

"Did you say ghost?" She looked at her husband unaware she was looking at him through Melissa. "No, Jerry, not again! You promised! You promised that after Nick I'd never have to live through that again! Did living in my grandmother's old house not mean anything to you?"

"What ghost?" Jerry tried to lie. "I didn't say ghost. I said…." He looked to his kids. "What rhymes with ghost? Host, most, coast, roast…" He turned back to his wife. "Okay, another ghost wandered in, but trust me, I'm not letting her stay."

"What does she have against me?" Turning to Alex, Melissa stood between them as Jerry looked around her.

"It's a she?" Theresa posed with the pitcher of tea unable to see the elusive apparition. "Is she prettier than me?"

Jerry looked to the spirit of Melissa Wilder and back to his wife unsure who he was afraid of more. All Melissa could do would be to go all poltergeist, but his wife could really make life unpleasant.

"Please don't make me answer that question."


	3. Chapter 3

3

"Guys, how was dinner…" Theresa started picking up and clearing the dinner table. "I hope you liked the lemon-roasted chicken." Everyone was very happy with the meal. Justin dabbed up the sauce with his roll, and Max gnawed at the last of his drumstick. Alex was not happy being stuck at home for her grounding from a movie she had been waiting a month to see with her friends. She was so going to hate hearing them talk about it in school without being a part of the conversation or actually being able to add anything. Her father meanwhile mugged happily and started helping his wife with the dirty dishes as he felt every husband should. When he turned round, the dishwasher popped open and the rack slide open to take the dirty dishes.

"Jerry!!!" Theresa freaked at the sight of that. "That had better be magic because you promised me that you was not letting that ghost stay."

"I told her!" Jerry told the truth. "But she's still hanging around. Theresa, she's not like Nick." He implored her as he helped load the washer. "She's lonely. She wants people to talk to…."

"But I can't see or hear her!!!" His beautiful wife pointed out.

"Would you like to?" Jerry had a thought. "I'm sure I could teach Justin a spell that…" Theresa was glaring at him upset and annoyed. "Forget I said that!"

"So…" Max moved slowly from the dinner table as he held his full stomach. "What's it like being a ghost?"

"Picture yourself wandering through the world without a single person seeing or talking to you as you wandered anywhere and everywhere without a single thing to do to fill your time…" Melissa over-dramatized with gestures for Max.

"Kind of like Alex when she's grounded…" Justin smirked and added on with a look to his sister. Alex shot him a look and pictured his head exploding. Why couldn't she get a spell to turn her brother into a frog?

"Guys, please…." Theresa chided her kids for their one-sided and invisible conversation. "Do you know what it looks like to me to see you talk to people I can't see and get answers from thin air? It's creepy!" She looked around the loft. "No disrespect."

"None taken…" Melissa was right in front of her.

"Come on, Max…" Justin raced to get his jacket. "_Haunted High School Three: Ashley's Revenge_ starts in twenty minutes. I hear Michayla's returning in it as the vampire Lilith."

"Hey…" Melissa glided over upset. "What does a vampire have to do with a haunted house?!"

"It's a horror movie!" Max grinned excitedly. "It doesn't have to be real!!!"

"Hey mom…" Alex really wanted to get out of the place to join her friends at the movie. She looked around for her father and noticed her mother. "Dad said it's okay with him if you let me go see that movie." Her mother looked down and up as Jerry rose up from behind the counter. Caught in her deception, Alex winced from her attempted subterfuge.

"Nice try!" Jerry looked at her. "I ought to ground you an extra week for trying to turn your mother against me."

"But, dad!!!" Alex heard her brothers leaving behind her for the movies.

"Alex…" Theresa spoke up. "That movie will still be playing when your grounding is up."

"Alex…" Melissa glided over to her emanating her old field of cold air. "We could spend time together?"

"Why would I do that?" Alex spoke to her, rolled her eyes and stormed up the spiral staircase for her bedroom on the third floor. Theresa looked at her angry daughter to her husband and then back to the supposedly empty room.

"Alex, please don't talk to that ghost; we'll never get rid of it!" She stopped and looked round the room. "No offense."

"None taken…" Again, Melissa was right in front of her.

Alex stormed her room and slammed her door as hard as she could trying to prove how upset she was to her parents. The breeze wafted and sent her posters of Hannah Montana, The Jonas Brothers and Taylor Swift lofting in the air and then resettling. Grumbling under her breath, she paced back and forth determined to somehow get out of this place and see that movie with her friends to make fun of it. There was no way she was going to miss a movie with Zac Efron, Ricky Ullman, Jaime Spears, Ashley Tisdale and Michalka in it. If only she could somehow be in two places at once… Wait a second… she was a wizard! She _could_ be in two places at once! Her devious thoughts once again craftily drafting a plan, she took her wand from the top of her bureau and recalled on the spells her father had been teaching her.

"Okay…" Alex lightly waved her wand over her own head. "Edgebonoutousis…" She said the mystical word for duplicate and felt a stirring of the air off her body. She felt the aura around her body being pulled away in the form of light and extending away before her to stretch out into a human-sized shape. It shone and grew brighter then blinked out leaving a clone of her in her sweat pants and t-shirt looking at her. Alex liked looking at herself; she considered herself a very attractive girl, but seeing herself as others did was an ever better experience.

"Perfect…" She mused toward her clone. "Okay," She lightly pushed it toward her bed, and forced it to lie down as she pulled her blankets over it. "You take a nice nap, and I'll be home after midnight to replace you. Okay?"

Her vacuous clone forced a light smile and felt so comfortable in the big canopy bed wrapped up in the comforter.

"Perfect." Alex tucked her clone in, turned off the light in the room and collected a second set of clothes to change into in the garage before turning to her bedroom window looking over the alley. It was three stories off the ground with a fire escape right next to her. She had scaled it several times; the tricky part was getting past the second floor balcony outside the dining area on the floor under her. With her parents not in sight, she just had to be sure her father wasn't taking the trash out next to her. The ladder rattled as she rode it down and she landed next to the incline to the much lower basement garage. Up in her room on the third floor, her clone nestled deeply into her bed.

"Alex…" Melissa's spirit stuck her spectral head through the door. "You asleep yet?" She passed through the door fully and entered the room. "Your brothers went to a movie, and your father's getting ready to close the shop." She drifted across the room, tested whether she was falling through the bed or creating enough ectoplasm to lie on top of it and then scooted over to the girl in the bed. The psychic stuff was so much easier to conjure in this place already charged by mystical energy. Melissa sat next to the clone on the bed thinking it was Alex.

"I was bored so I thought we'd talk girl talk." She stretched out on the bed in her long skirt and high-heeled Gibson girl boots. "Now, I know I'm about a hundred years behind the times, but I've actually seen enough of the Roaring Twenties and the Fabulous Fifties to try and keep up with today's culture. I mean, times changes, but girls don't. If there's anything you'd like to ask me about boys, go for it."

The clone barely stirred.

"Alex, please don't do this to me." Melissa looked at her. "If anyone was going to talk to me, I thought it'd be you."

The shape next to her didn't talk.

"Alex, please talk to me…" She pressed her hand down into her body. It was so cold and empty. Melissa jerked her hand back afraid. The living was usually so warm to the touch.

"Alex?" Melissa concernly felt around in side the clone. "Are you in there?" She tried rousing her awake. She became a bit concerned wondering if Alex had died in her sleep or something. Her left hand passing through Alex but pressing against the bed, she wondered if this was a wizard thing like astral projection. She sat up and tried shaking Alex awake, kneeling on the bed in the process, and tried lifting Alex's body in her arms to shake her awake.

"Alex… wake-up… Oops!!!" She leaned too far over Alex and fell forward… into the girl's body. The clone's body stirred.

"Sorry, sorry…" The clone started waking up. "I didn't mean to do that, I just…" She brushed her long dark hair out of her face and looked under her then down upon herself. She was in Alex's body!!! "Oh no…" She jumped from the bed, flicked on the light and looked at her reflection in the Alex's photo-covered and souvenir-entrusted mirror.

"Oh, Alex, I'm so sorry!" Melissa looked at herself as Alex Russo. She was Alex now! "I didn't mean to do that, I… I…" She caressed her face, pulled her long dark hair back and lowered her bottom lip in stunned shock at what happened. "I'm alive! I'm alive again!!" Her stomach grumbled and made a noise. "I'm hungry too!" She was ecstatic! What ghost had the chance to be alive again?! She shined at her reflection. Her reflection!!! When was the last time she had one of those?! Granted, it wasn't her own hazel-eyed and brown-haired visage, but Alex was an adorable sight to see as her replacement. "Just let Lt. Saunders see me now!" She spoke of one of the ghosts at the theatre. Her stomach grumbled again.

"I get to eat again!" She cheered excitedly and raced into the door, crashing off it and landing on the floor. "Ow!!!! Oh, yeah, I'm no longer a ghost…" She groaned, lifted herself to her feet and actually once again opened the door to pass through it before racing down eagerly to the second floor. She felt like a kid again as she raced down the spiral staircase. In fact, she was a kid again! Theresa spun around from starting the dishwasher and watched her daughter's image invading the refrigerator.

"Lexie…" She looked at her. "Are you hungry again?"

Her daughter's face looked at her with a chicken leg in her mouth.

"You can see me?" Removing the chicken leg from her mouth, she looked up. Melissa's mind was racing. "Um, uh, yeah…. I just had to get more, uh…" She looked to the shelf in the refrigerator. "Green stuff."

"That's gazpacho."

"I'm sure it's delicious!" She grabbed several bowls and a can of soda. Theresa looked at her husband who looked back at her. Alex seemed to have made a complete turnaround. When Alex had stormed out of the room, she was angry and upset enough to never talk to them again, but now, she acted as if she hadn't eaten in days. What was going on here?

"Jerry…" Theresa tried to figure it out as Alex sat at the sofa and finished off the leftovers. "Is she trying to get even with us or something?"

"When it comes to Alex…" He whispered back confused in hushed tones. "I try not to figure her out." He looked over to her drinking her can of Pepsi. The girl paused, held her chest and opened her mouth. A long resonating burp erupted from deep within her body.

"I haven't done that in a long time!!!" Melissa continued posing as Alex grinning ear to ear and laughed at herself and chuckled before biting into a piece of chicken.

"I think she's gone el mucho loco!!" Theresa watched unable to look away at the sight of her daughter putting away all that food. "Jerry, I think she's lost it."

"Or that's what she wants us to think!" He noticed his daughter mixing peas, rice and corn together into a new side course with the chicken. "Where are you putting all that after the dinner you just had?" Jerry wondered why his daughter wasn't two feet wide and three hundred pounds.

"What?" His daughter looked to him. "I don't know. I'm just really, really hungry." She jostled over something in the sofa under her left leg. "What's this?" She held up the remote to the TV.

"Uh….the remote control to the TV?" Jerry answered her. His daughter aimed it, clicked it curiously and turned on the TV to a rerun of _Lost_. It was a scene with Josh Holloway and Matthew Fox talking on the beach not far from Dominic Monahan.

"Oh my god, who are the hunks?!"

"Now, that's my daughter talking!!!" Theresa recognized her boy-crazy daughter in love with three of TV's sexiest men alive and joined her for a night of Wednesday night TV. Jerry rolled his eyes not wanting to be compared to guys who had unfair connections to personal trainers and dieticians to make them look good. Mother and daughter meanwhile bonded through the show about the castaways and the medical drama that was _Grey's Anatomy_. It was a good night for one of the Russo women to bond with a young lady she understood to be her daughter, and Melissa really flexed her improvisation talents whenever Theresa asked about her daughter's life. Eventually, Melissa began thinking that Theresa was her mother, and she liked it. She was Alex now, and her life could only get better from here.

Shortly before midnight, Justin and Max drifted home from the movie, and Alex returned a few blocks behind them in a blouse, blue jeans and boots. Instead of coming in through the residential address behind the shop, she entered the alley, stepped and climbed up the railing next to the basement garage and reached the fire escape to climb up the side of the building. The second floor beyond the patio to the loft was dark except for the moonlight, and her bedroom itself above that was even darker as the wild middle child stepped inside her bedroom window with a foot on the inside sill, ducking her head under the pane then pulling the rest of herself inside the structure. She had left her other clothes in the garage. Not wanting to go after them just now, she looked at her clone asleep in her bed and crept over to her bureau to change her clothes. Under her foot, a floorboard creaked, and the clone actually woke up!!!

"Alex???" Melissa turned on the bedside lamp and spoke from inside the clone. "But how…" The two of them stared at each other in shock. Alex stared back at herself in even more shock!

"Melissa?" Alex looked at herself coming at her. "What are you doing in my duplicate?!"

"Duplicate?" Melissa clutched the chest of her now teenage body as she understood. "This was a duplicate?"

"I created it so I could sneak out to the movies!!!" Alex walked around herself.

"Oh, thank god," Melissa was starting to understand so much as she got up from bed. "I was so scared you had died and passed over, so when I fell into you, I started pretending to be you so your family wouldn't grieve for you." Melissa felt so much better realizing how this was turning out after all. "But this is like so much better! I can be like… your twin sister! Won't that be fun?!" She shined thrilled at the thought of it.

"But… I don't want a twin sister…" Alex pulled out her wand from her purse. "And I can't let a duplicate be discovered to let my parents know I snuck out. So…"

"Alex, please, no!!!" Melissa backed away in shock. "Don't do this to me!!!"

"Non-Edgebonoutousis…" Alex did the counter-spell and Melissa in the cloned body shrunk away in fear of becoming a ghost again, but nothing had happened. She was still Alex and alive. She was also young again. She was also possibly a wizard now too. She wondered… could being in the duplicate and bonding with it be what was keeping it from being destroyed?

"That can't be good." Alex started wondering what she was going to do with a twin sister. "I better go get Justin…" Alex turned for the only person she trusted to help her, but Melissa refused to give up being alive and young again. Growing desperate, Melissa gritted her teeth and grabbed a ceramic plate covered in potpourri from the top of the bureau and cracked it over Alex's head. From that blow to the head, the female sorceress dropped to her feet unconscious.

"What was that?" Jerry Russo was reading a modern version of _The Iliad_ in bed as he heard the loud thump of something hitting the floor.

"Nothing…" Melissa called out in Alex's voice to cover her crime. Uncertain what to do next, she looked around once, paced back and forth a second trying to think of what to do next then started dragging Alex's real body toward the closet to hide it.


	4. Chapter 4

4

Alex had been up and about very early in the morning puttering around the basement when her parents woke up to open the shop. She claimed that she had misplaced something and was trying to find it. After breakfast, she was off to school, and exercising every effort she do to find her way through the school and make her classes. Luckily, she had the Harper girl to get clues from where to go. If she could make one day, she could make it easily from now on, but oddly, she did not recognize all her classmates, and when Mr. Laritate surprised her on a question about the Industrial Revolution, Alex knew all about it as if she had lived through it and the impact the new jobs had on Irish-Americans in New York City at the turn of the century. Out of nowhere, Alex also expressed a desire to join the drama club. It was almost as if she was rediscovering her life from scratch.

"Kids…" Jerry was in the secret lair behind the food locker waiting for his kids. "Because of Alex's dreams, I thought we'd better skip ahead to…" He tapped the chalkboard. "Size spells."

"Can we use it to shrink Alex's ego?" Max mused at the desk in the room. He and Justin high-fived at each other as their sister barely responded.

"No…" Jerry taught his kids in the use of their magic. "Now, because wizards generally live longer than regular people, we usually collect much more belongings and possessions than anyone else. Using a size spell, we can shrink our stuff to store in smaller areas than they actually take up." He turned to his daughter taking notes. "Now, Alex, this is what going to kill those nightmares of yours. The spell allows us to shrink things, but not to enlarge anything. When we decrease the size of anything, we say Minimus Shrinkus, but to restore it to size, we say Maximus Restorum, which only works as a counter to Minimus Shrinkus. Maximum Restorus is only good as a counter spell; it can't be used by itself."

"Oh…" Alex was actually following along her wizard training, but it may have just been because of her ordeal with her nightmares. "But Minimus Shrinkus can still be used to shrink other stuff, right? Like say people, right…"

"Yeah, but why would you want to do that?" Her father asked.

"I foresee us shrunk down again and locked in her underwear drawer again." Justin recalled cruelty leveled at him from his sister.

"I foresee her old boyfriends in glass jars lined up along her shelf like a butterfly collection." Max snickered back at his brother.

"Alex…" Jerry heard them and looked to his daughter. "You are not to use this spell against your brothers or anyone from school!"

"Would I do that?!"

"Yes!!!!" Her brothers chorused together. Melissa was so learning more and more about the type of character Alex was.

"Okay…" Jerry turned round to the Egyptian sarcophagus in the room. "I picked this up from a curio shop in Cairo twelve years ago. It's very important to me…" He started turning to Alex, realized how often her spells went awry and then chose Justin instead. "Justin, I want you to shrink it down to store somewhere."

"Got it…" Justin mugged assuredly and drew out his wand. "Minimus Shrinkus!" A ball of mystical energy flew from the tip of his wand and burst open on contact with the fake Egyptian relic. It seemed to disappear from the flash, but as Alex and Max looked over their desk, they noticed something in the floor. Justin proudly dropped his jaw impressed and picked up the five-inch tall sarcophagus.

"Careful, careful…" Jerry was still very protective of his cherished keepsake even at its new size. "It may be shrunk, but it's still important to me." He took it from his son. "Now, it's still the same object, but it's been miniaturized… even its contents…" He carefully prodded it open and showed his kids the books and objects in it that had shifted to the back in its handling.

"Hey, dad…" Justin looked over it in his father's hand. "That would make a great accessory to my _Indiana Jones_ diorama in my room; could I, uhhhh…."

"No!!! Now…." Jerry turned to Alex and recalled things exploding and going wrong due to the imprecise directions of her spells. "Max! I want you to restore it to regular size." Jerry placed his sarcophagus back on the floor.

"Sure…." Max waved his wand. "Maximus Restorum!" There was another flash of light and the sarcophagus was back to full size. The rush of size coming at Justin had knocked him back a bit as he reacted from the spell. Max was giggling a bit.

"Okay…." Melissa came running out as Alex. "My turn! My turn!"

"No!!!!" Jerry stopped the girl he thought was his daughter from casting a spell on his cherished keepsake. He caught her hand with the wand in it and smirked a bit as he tried to delicately handle the incident. "Uh, no disrespect, princess, but…. I'm still kind of reeling from the barking rabbit and the red brick that used to be a pigeon." He recalled her track record in getting distracted and how well she studied her spells. "So," He stepped back and postured a bit as he finished the class. "I want you guys to write down those spells a hundred times each and tomorrow bring something that you can shrink to store away for safekeeping. Alex, I'll expect you to be shrinking your wardrobe!"

Melissa absorbed that thought and collected her notebook as she departed the lair. Max had stopped to examine the sarcophagus for signs of it being shrunk, but Justin had hesitated thinking. He was deep in thought over how well their private magic lesson had gone. His sister had actually taken notes and had not rattled off one sarcastic comment or insult at him. In fact, she had behaved rather well all day long. The last time this had happened was when Nick had possessed her in order to escape being a ghost. For that matter, he had not seen the ghost Melissa Wilder all day long!

"Dad…" Justin turned to his dad. "Don't you think Alex was behaving herself today?" His face had become serious.

"Yeah…" Jerry picked up his clipboard. "She's hasn't been that way since Nick was…." Jerry dropped his clipboard and shook his finger. "Melissa!!!"

Down in the basement, the real Alex Russo looked around the inside of the basement closet. Her once perfect hair was a mess, and she had been left to see nothing but shadows and hear the footsteps of people moving around her upstairs in the sub shop. Bound and gagged to the chair, unable to scream or call for help, she had woke up in here this morning and had tried screaming for help, but Melissa had did a really good job in tying her up in the old chair. When trying to make a noise didn't work, she started examining what ropes she could touch and feel with her fingertips. Gradually, she loosened one hand, struggling with it over an hour to free her right hand and then pulled off the scarf used to gag her. Finally freeing herself, she gasped and rubbed her neck from the pain she had gone through being tied to the straight back wood chair. As she untied her left leg, the closet opened, and Melissa stood there in the body of the clone wearing her pink sweater and black Capri pants. Their eyes locked on each other.

"Almost free, huh…" Melissa looked at her with her own face and holding her own wand. "Alex, please… Just give me enough time to figure out what to do, and I'll let you go."

"Give me my wand back!" Alex glared at her with sheer hatred.

"I can't do that!" Melissa backed away and around the covered vintage automobile Jerry stored in the basement garage. "You could actually use it to hurt me." She backed away afraid.

"Give me my wand!!!" Alex attacked Melissa first still clad in her clothes from the night before. Her clone hit the floor with her back, and the wand skidded away from her under the car and over to the other side. The two identical young girls started fighting each other to get it. Alex pushed Melissa away, and Melissa swung her into the forgotten tread-master on the other side of the room. Bouncing off of it, Alex skidded a bit and jumped to her feet again, lunging on Melissa and trying to pull her hair out, but the older personality in the younger body flung herself backward into the work bench near the sink. Alex stumbled off her clone after that as Melissa dived again looking for the wand. Springing forward, Alex climbed over her father's car and pushed Melissa to the floor once again, punching and hitting her as hard as she could. Coughing and trying to breath, Melissa reared her legs up and kicked the girl off of her. Trying to stop herself, Alex sailed backward hitting the iron shelves behind her with her back. Melissa scrambled hurriedly looking for the wand around the car. Alex grabbed the old dusty aluminum baseball bat she found trying to hit Melissa with it. Melissa ducked the first swing but threw herself into Alex over the hood of the car next, landing in the narrow two-foot space between the vehicle and the wall.

The wand was lying against the wall.

Alex saw it first and started reaching for it, but Melissa grabbed her by the hair and started pulling her back. She had to climb over the young lady under her, but Alex was holding her by the back of her pants. Their fingers reaching, their hands groping for it, Alex elbowed her clone and lunged for it, but when Melissa fell down again, she pushed it way again and pinned the girl down. All she had to do was force Alex's head down and grab it! Her fingers curled around it and she waved it behind her as Alex dashed to her feet away from her.

"I'm sorry, Alex…" Melissa rubbed her nosebleed and limped a bit. "I didn't want to do this. Maximus Restorum!!!" She suddenly caught herself. "Those aren't the right words, were they?"

"I don't think they are…" Alex mocked her by shaking her head. She suddenly realized she was near the stairs to run to her parents, but then her leather belt popped open at her waist. What would make it do that? She looked down and felt her jeans tightening and her sleeves receding from her wrists. She scowled a bit perplexed and felt the sleeves of her blouse rip from the shoulders of her main chemise. The seams of her jeans split open down her legs, and a button popped from her chest. She looked to Melissa standing just a bit shorter than her. Melissa started backing away in shock.

"No, no, no!!" Alex started freaking. "This is my dream! Don't let this happen!!! Please don't let this happen!!!" Her face was filled with horror as her leather boots ripped from her soles, the front zipper of her jeans pulled apart and the front of her blouse ripped open to her tightening undergarments. Melissa backed away from her in stunned terror unable to think or do anything.

"Oh my god…" She was scared to death. "What did I do? What did I do???" Alex had reached ten feet tall and was pulling the car cover off her father's car to wrap herself in, but as far as she was going, she'd be lucky to make a bikini from it! Her bra shot across the room and landed in the corner as Melissa looked up, up and even further up… The ceiling rafters were at least twelve feet up, and Alex had hit her head on them as she pulled the car cover around her. The impact alarmed Jerry Russo in the kitchen as he looked for his daughter, rolled his eyes to his wife and rushed to the basement steps. Justin and Max behind them, they hurried to see what had nearly crashed through the floor under their feet. As soon as they reached full view of the basement, Theresa gasped in shock at what she was seeing. It was her daughter… increased several times over in size and huddling in a huge twenty-foot tall presence filling nearly the entire room… and beyond that, her daughter again…. Huddled against the far wall scared to death….


	5. Chapter 5

5

"I don't know just who I'm mad at more…" Jerry paced back and forth in the lair. "You for creating the clone and sneaking out…" He looked at Alex normal size wearing her mother's sweats from the dryer. "Or you for trying to deceive us!"

"In my defense…" Melissa was nursing her bleeding nose. "I thought I was really doing the right thing." She looked up to Jerry with Alex's face. "I really did think Alex had died, but then… when she turned up alive…. I just did not want to going back to being dead!"

"Great…" Justin looked at Max. "We got another sister!"

"A nicer, smarter cuter version…" Melissa offered.

"So I'm the evil one? That's not fair!" Alex looked to her father. "She tied me up to a chair in a closet in the basement!!!"

"Only till I could figure out what to do!!!" Melissa shot back.

"Enough!!!" Jerry screamed at the sniping.

"Jerry," Theresa groaned holding her head and taking aspirin for her stress. "Look, I really don't mind having another daughter, but how would we explain her?! I mean, she's alive now, and we can't exactly kill her to make her a ghost again."

"And I love you too!" Melissa reached out and hugged her would-be foster mother. Theresa made a face of disbelief.

"I can answer that…" Professor Victorious Crumbs sounded from beyond the glowing glass dimensional door to the lair. The secret dimensional nexus could open and reach all other mystical nexus spots on the planet, and the aged magician stepped through from his home at Wiz Tech, the secret name of a school for young witches and wizards. A student of a student of Merlin himself and a descendant of the great Dagda himself, Crumbs entered the lair clad in his robes of wisdom. He looked upon Alex upon arrival.

"You are in a lot of trouble, young lady…" Crumbs told her. "Your dreams were a warning of your continuing selfish desires. I can't fault this young lady for trying to preserve her life…" He turned to Melissa. "But you could have made some better decisions along the way."

"Who's the guy with the Santa Claus beard?" Melissa asked out loud.

"He's the headmaster of our wizard school." Justin leaned over to his sister's clone.

"Now, Jerry, " Crumbs turned and spoke with the wise and scholarly voice of a man who had seen over five hundred years of European and American History unfold around him. "We can't have two Alex Russos living here on Waverly Place, and we can't exactly sentence Melissa back to what she was. I mean, it just wouldn't be prudent, so… what I'm going to do is take Melissa back with me to Wiz Tech and raise her to be a sorceress as my adoptive daughter."

"Thank you, sir…" Melissa spoke. She looked exactly like Alex, but her personality was all her own.

"She doesn't get punished?!!" Alex stood up upset and limping from the sofa. "She cracked a plate over my head, tied me to a chair, left me in a basement closet, nearly pulled my hair out and blew me up like a float in the Thanksgiving Day Parade!!!"

"Oh, you want her punished…" Crumbs looked to Alex then back over to Melissa sitting next to Theresa. "You'll also work a week in the school kitchen."

"Whoopee…" Melissa reacted lackluster.

"What I don't understand is…" Justin reacted perplexed over what had happened. "Dad, you specifically said that Maximus Restorum would only work as a counter to Minimus Shrinkus, but then, how did Melissa get Alex to blow up anyway?"

"Remember when Nick was inside Alex, and her magic got jacked up…" Jerry leaned slightly at the desk in the lair. "Melissa did the same thing to the clone."

"Wait a second..." Melissa grinned ear-to-ear. "Does that mean I'm more powerful than Alex?" Alex shot her a look of annoyed animosity.

"Only for a while..." Crumbs walked in front of her to intimidate her. "Much as a steamed pot loses its pressure, so as your mystical powers will eventually abate to normal controlled levels, young lady." He leaned down to her. "In the mean time, you will have a lot of studying before you can be considered a true wizard."

"Yippee…" Melissa did not sound excited.

"Old Dumbledore teases me because he has more students…" Crumbs mused while leaning over to Jerry and stroking his long beard. "Well, now I've got a daughter… Odds-Botkin, I've got a daughter???" He started fretting early over the tribulations of being a guardian responsible for this girl.

"Yeah," Melissa swayed sideways in her seat as she thought about it. "I'm his… Oh god, I'm going to be living in a school!" She sounded a lot like Alex. Theresa characteristically bonded with the young lady regardless who she might have been in her previous life. She looked upon her with a fond thought of how close Melissa was to being the loving and adoring daughter she really wanted.

"Let's get going…" Professor Crumbs turned back to the mystical doorway. "Do you have any luggage?"

"I can raid Alex's closet…"

"Well, that ain't going to happen." Jerry spoke for his real daughter and thanked his old teacher for taking the extra Alex off his hands. He was kind of happy the way things had turned out. Alex had faced her nightmare and had faced responsibility for her actions, and Melissa was finally getting a life back among the living as well as getting to be something special. He was sure he'd be seeing a lot of her in the future. She and his daughter might actually turn out to be best friends. After watching Professor Crumbs and Melissa pass through the dimensional nexus, he turned to his wife beaming toward him. She guided him to look behind him to the sofa. Tired and exhausted from her experience, Alex was laying across the small sofa asleep on her side like a storybook princess.

"Well, at least she's finally sleeping." Theresa tiptoed over, kissed Alex and draped the blanket from over the back of the sofa over her. She turned and followed her husband and sons out of the lair. Alex just stirred a bit in her sleep, a light grin over her lips as she turned her head. She was finally having a dream she enjoyed.

"Yes, Mr. Bloom, I'll play your girlfriend in your next movie…."

END


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